Friday, March 23, 2012

In this picture, these are Chinese fans from the oldern China days. In the past, these fans had a variety of designs. On these 2 fans, they are painted with landscape scenes. This category of fans are landscape painting. These fan are not meant for fanning but rather they are a unique cultural conception of China. Compared to other countries, it is not representing a natural scene but rather endowing the cultural meaning in nature. I means a union between the person and nature. Harmony between humans and nature is an essential, basic element in landscape painting.

Compared to todays' fans, there is a vibrant range of colours added. These colours were not put in a structured manner but rather randomly. Some of todays' fans are not made only of wood and paper but could be made of feathers too. These days, fans were not semi-circle shaped but could be any shape like leaf-shape or circle shapes.

These are hand-painted porcelain with flowery patterns called the Bird-and-flower paintings. Flowers were an integral component of religious teaching and medicine. There are four types of flowers making up the "four gentlemen", these four flowers are plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum are the most welcomed paintings. And for a special type of flower, the "peony", it was the "king of flowers", symbolising wealth, good fortune and high status.

Todays' Bird-and-flower paintings are using freehand methods compared to the oldern times. The three categories of freehand painting is slightly freehand, greatly freehand and fine-brush with freehand styles. Nowadays, Bird-and-flower paintings are not only applicable to scrolls, manuscripts or porcelain but to anything as a form of design.

These scrolls are hanging from the wall and they are called Ancient Chinese Poem Calligraphy scrolls. Popular ancient Chinese proverbs on a scroll is a concise way to communicate to others the value of hard work, commitment, wise planning, and many more important morals. Chinese calligraphy artwork is an ancient and aesthetic discipline in China that often combines natural beauty with words of wisdom.

These day, hanging scrolls are much more colourful as the pictures had brighter colours. Hanging scrolls were not restricted to only calligraphy or paintings but they were also used for advertisements. Todays' scrolls could be coloured and drawn on silk and not just on paper.

1) Adequate information on the "Change and Continuity" in the river system/ river profile and ancient civilisation.

-along Singapore River, from Coleman Bridge to Anderson Bridge

-at the Asian Civilisations Museum

The Singapore River wasn't that clean in the past...

Today, tour boats float on waters, as tourists and locals alike sit on and enjoy the scenery.

HOW DID THE SINGAPORE RIVER EVOLVE?

The mouth of the Singapore River used to be the old port of Singapore, the humble beginnings of Singapore's existence.

Trading, where our forefathers lived, the early civilisation of Singapore.

When Sir Stamford Raffles landed on the Singapore River, he realised how important the Singapore River was, and it was a very good place for trading, and it expanded rapidly over the years, starting from 1880...

With rapid population growth and urbanisation, the Singapore River ended up becoming into an open sewer and rubbish dump as all forms of waste were discharged into them. That was during the 1970s. Then, a clean-up campaign was introduced, and the river were clean around 1987. After which, regular inspections started to make sure the sewage system is working well, and the river cleans.

Today, the Singapore River is now part of the Marina Reservoir after damming the Singapore River at its outlet to the sea to create a new reservoir of freshwater. The damn is called the Marina Barrage. Old kampongs and shops where our forefathers lived were replaced with new hotels stand alongside old restored wharehouses, which have been converted to shops, restaurants, along the upper reaches of the Singapore River.

And there you go, the Marina Barrage.

This is the Old Tao Nan School building

The Asian Civilisation Museum first opened its doors at the Old Tao Nan School building on 22 April 1997 at Armenian Street, with exhibits focusing mainly on Chinese civilisation. When the Empress Place Building was renovated, the museum started to exhibit collections from Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia and East Asia.

There is a wide variety of exhibits, ranging from artwork to medieval prints.

The exhibits are displayed in a huge museum, works of art from China, all the way to India. It is so exquisite!

3) Using photographic evidences, do you think the shape course of Singapore River will change in the future? Justify your answers.

Singapore River (Past):

Singapore River(Now):

Referring to the pictures above, i believe that the shape course will not change much. As from all pictures, only certain parts might be taken up slightly to build a bigger mall or an extension of land for better view. Also, the Singapore River is very important as it is a part of our Singapore's history, and it is also a tourist attraction. Unless the government wants to build something like a walkway or a dock in the Singapore River, there shouldn't be any changes to the shape course. Also, the original shape course would need to be kept as much as possible in order for students like us who are curious to learn about the history of Singapore and tourists to learn as much facts as possible.

Explain the activities that are carried out along the river during the early days and present days.

Singapore river in the past:

In the past,there were many activities on the Singapore River. There were hawkers, coolies, lightermen and merchants on and alongside of the Singapore River. A lot of shophouses were also situated there.Trading was common along Singapore River, since Singapore was a trading port at that time.The river was very polluted at that time.

Singapore river in the present:

Now, there is no more trading in the area but the shophouses and some other buildings of that time are preserved. There are restaurants, pubs and clubs along the river. There are also river cruises in the river for tourists . The river is much cleaner now, compared to the past. A lot of office buildings, companies and shopping malls are located near the Singapore river.

I enjoyed walking along the river with my group mates while we were doing the task. It was fun to work outdoors with my group mates. I liked the Asian Civilisation Museum a lot as it has a wide range of exhibits of the different countries in Asia. The write-up beside the exhibits was very helpful and I learnt a lot about the culture, activities and beliefs of the different races.

What were some challenges we faced?

We were not sure of the directions to the Asian civilizations museum from the Singapore river.Thus, at first,we got lost and went the other side of the Singapore River instead. We wasted a lot of time trying to find the correct way to the museum. Due to this wastage of time, we had little time left to do our geography task at the end.

Describe ONE area that you think your group could do better if given an opportunity to do it again.

If we were given another opportunity, We would plan our route well. With good planning, we could have saved a lot of time and spend more time on the geography task.

1) What we enjoyed most while working on this task?
I guess we enjoyed being able to spend some time out of home and away from the macbook and go out to discover more about the Singapore River and the Museum with our friends, as staying at home for two weeks is quite boring and learning things by exploring the artifacts by ourselves will help us learn better rather than just searching for them on the internet.

2) What were some challenges we faced?
We got lost due to the multiple exits from the Clarke Quay MRT station, and the bulletin boards did not really state where the Museum was, and we were confused for awhile of which bridge is needed for the task.

3) Describe ONE area that you think your group could do better if given an opportunity to do it again.We could have be more prepared about finding out exactly on how to walk the right way to the museum.

As this project is a group project, whenever we have queries regarding anything, I could just turn to a member for help. Working together rather than as a individual made me very happy. I was very happy to be able to go visit the museum and river to revisit the past of Singapore's history and the world's influence on Singapore. It let me understand and appreciate the evolution of Singapore in both geographically and history.

When walking a path, there would definitely be obstacles obstructing the way. In this case, one major obstruction was the lack of preparation, leading to the group getting lost in Clarke Quay while trying to find the way to Ancient Civilisation Museum. We also faced another difficulty which was spending too much time on one location. Hence, leading no time to do Geography.

We could plan ahead of time like how to get there and brief information about Ancient Civilisation Museum and the Singapore River instead of going there without a clue. Time management awas another area to be improved as we spend more than an hour finding our way and reach the Clarke Quay MRT. By the time we finished exploring Ancient Civilisation Museum, we had no time to do the other task. We could also have split up the job with 2 members doing the river while the other 2 members did the museum to save time.

What we enjoyed most when working on this taskWe enjoyed taking pictures and walking along the river with each other. It was a good feeling to go out with our friends. The artifacts in the Asian Civilisation Museum was also intricate and exquisite, and going to the Asian Civilisation Museum was a good way to know some history of the specific parts/area of Asia.

What were some challenges we faced?
We did not plan our route properly and got lost and went the other side of the Singapore River. We wasted time trying to find our way to the museum. We could not even spot the Coleman Bridge until our classmates told us. However, we could not even find the Anderson bridge, and we ended up not completing the Geography task.

Describe ONE area that you think your group could do better if given an opportunity to do it again.
Planning our route well. It was a challenge to tackle, and we had to face consequences, like time management, and we had to rush about taking pictures in the museum as we were short of time.